Day 68: All These Things That I've Done

August 12, 2022 in Astoria, Oregon

We woke up this morning at the leisurely hour of 6 am, and had an extremely slow morning packing the van and truck and getting ready for breakfast.

My last breakfast with the team was host-provided (woohoo!), and I had yogurt sand granola and some blueberry bread. I’m so glad they gave us food, because we were really running low on food choices that weren’t 2-month-old ham or soup.

After we ate, we did a little awards ceremony. They were silly awards and were written on plates, and I got “Most likely to adopt a highway (and brag about it)” and “Best candidate for bridesmaid” with Eliza. After that, I presented the town facts I had volunteered to do in the form of a song called Astoria, Astoria (to the tune of America the Beautiful). I’ll attach the lyrics below.

“This August day, we’ll go away

To find the western shore

Our cue sheets long and bibs on wrong

escaping Razzi’s snores!!!!!!!!

Astoria, Astoria

You’re right next to the sea

Our chammys on, Nutella’s gone

Blame Erik and Cori

And what we’ll say is ay bay bay

as we bike further on

we’ll VAAP a lot just like we’re taught

until the miles are gone

Astoria, Astoria

Our journey ends with thee

We biked, we built

William wore a kilt

From Virginia sea to Oregon sea!!!”

It’s filled with inside jokes, so it probably won’t make much sense, but it was a fan favorite for best town facts of the trip.

As I’m sure is expected, we took a very long time to get on the road as well. Eventually, I set off with my last-ever ride group, Eliza, Nathan, and Lorelei, just before sweep.

The ride almost immediately had significant climbing, one of which spanning 2 miles and 700 feet of climbing, which is really quite steep. We chugged right along though, and I was so impressed with how resilient my legs have become.

The middle of the ride was easy breezy, albeit a bit chilly and cloudy, save for one kind of sketchy bike trail through Astoria, which also happened to be active trolley tracks.

The last seven or eight miles were in the shoulder of a highway, and included the longest bridge I’ve ever biked over. I was in the back for this part, so I did a really good job keeping track of cars behind us and getting us over the bridge.

We chalked the turn on to the beach road, and were the first group to arrive at our meeting spot about a half mile away from the beach.

After our long wait for the missing group, we all lined up with our bikes and helmets for the very last ride together, and we were off. As we crested a hill, we could see a small crowd of people further down on the beach lined up and waiting for us!

We all cheered as we came up on the beach and almost fell over when we hit the sand. From there, we hopped off and ran with our bikes to make a line about 10 yards from the water line.

After throwing off our shoes and helmets, we gave a “ready, set, go” and sprinted to dip our tires in the water, signifying the end of our cross-country journey. From there, we ran back up the beach. In the few seconds I had before running back to the water, I thought of some of my favorite moments of the trip.

• Taking a “shower” in Jack Fork River in Missouri (maybe Eminence?)

• Playing fishbowl until it got too dark to see in Guffey, Colorado

• Finishing my first ride since Covid, even though it was incredibly tough and incredibly hot in Kentucky

• Making it to the top of the continental divide with my dad in Colorado

• Turning our phone flashlights on while the pastor at our host church sang Friends in Low Places at the church talent show in Missouri

• Finishing both of my centuries with the strongest feeling of accomplishment I’ve ever experienced in Kansas and Oregon

• Turning a corner on a downhill and seeing the prettiest fly-fishing river on the Montana-Idaho line

• Spending the afternoon shopping by myself in Jackson Hole, Wyoming

• Singing while biking on every difficult ride

• Hanging out at water parks after rides every day in Kansas

• The mountain pass where someone had written a message for me in chalk

• Exploring all the high schools we stayed in (my favorite kind of host!)

• Going to the 1840s mining town in Fairplay, Colorado

• Watching the sun go down over the Garden of the Gods (Illinois version)

• Watching the sun go down over the Garden of the Gods (Colorado version)

• Going down the enormous waterslides with Kelsey and Lorelei in Dodge City, Kansas

• Experiencing the purest of natural beauty in the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone

• Cooking veggie stir fry for my team in Jeffrey City, Wyoming

• My truck day with Caroline and all the adventures that came with it in Idaho

• The pure joy of getting to the last 100 feet of every hill before an awesome downhill

• Watching the parody ad my teammates made for our terrible sleeping pads while we all laughed so hard we cried

• Every single build day, which all made me realize how important it is to me to continue volunteering for affordable housing in my day-to-day life

• The feeling of the Pacific Ocean rushing over my head on the Oregon coast, surrounded by my teammates hooting and hollering

All of these little moments, and a hundred more, flew through my mind as my teammates and I ran into the water. It was cold outside and way colder in the ocean, but we didn’t care at all. There’s no feeling quite like breaking the surface of the water when the water symbolizes so much.

I truly think there’s no better way than to end my blog the way it started––with such hope for what comes next. So, with that, there’s the story of my incredibly difficult, unbelievably moving, wholly wonderful summer. While everyone’s lost, the battle is won with all these things that I’ve done.